Jaroslav Kušnír, Head of the Institute of British and American Studies, attended the International Conference of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE), which was held between August 31st and September 4th, 2026, where he presented a paper on Samoan and Māori Cultures and Identities in Albert Wendt’s Robocop in Long Bay and Witi Ihimaera’s We’ll Always Have Paris.

Jaroslav Kušnír and Dan Horatiu Popescu from Partium Christian University in Oradea, Romania, were also the main convenors of one of the 69 panels they had proposed and that was accepted by the organizing committee as part of the program. It was Panel 44, focusing on Indigenous and Oceanic Identities and Cultures in Contemporary Indigenous Literatures in English, including 3 sessions and 12 speakers from France, Italy, Spain, Canada, and Romania.

This conference is one of the largest and most significant conferences in English Studies in Europe and was held in the historical Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. The conference was a unique opportunity for scholars, young researchers, and PhD students to present their research work in the fields of literature, linguistics, cultural and translation studies, methodology of teaching English as a second language, and other fields. Thanks to the great organizing skills of the organizers, the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and the ESSE organization, the conference was a successful event, bringing scholars not only from Europe but also from all over the world. It became a forum not only for scholarly discussions but also for further academic cooperation.